Addressing the explosive
growth in ancestral travel, this compelling narrative combines intriguing tales
of discovery with tips on how to begin your own explorations. Actor and
award-winning travel writer Andrew McCarthy’s featured story recounts his quest to uncover his family’s Irish history, while twenty-five other
prominent writers tell their own heartfelt stories of connection.

Spanning the
globe, these stories offer personal takes on journeying home, whether the
authors are actively seeking long-lost relatives, meeting up with seldom-seen
family members, or perhaps just visiting the old country to get a feel for
their roots. A foreword by the Genographic Project’s Spencer Wells sets the
scene.

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Quotes & Awards

“Not only did this famed travel writer track down his own
fascinating Irish roots; his success spurred him on to invite other
writers to share their own personal genealogical stories…[also] inviting readers to join the genealogical
quest.”

Barnes & Noble, editorial review

“These twenty-six essays range from the prosaic (Illinois) to the mysterious (Tanzania).”

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Copious information brimming with heart and soul.”

Booklist

“Family secrets, mysteries, and lore are the impetus for the emotion-filled sojourns described in…twenty-six essays, covering places as diverse as Scotland, Cambodia, Mexico, Italy, Japan, and India…Whatever the story, each writer describes a moment when confusion, sadness, or detachment fell away and they knew they belonged…This poignant and information-filled travelog and genealogy primer is ideal for public libraries.”

Library Journal

“The essays are read by a large cast of professional narrators; however, listeners may not realize this at first, thanks to the readers’ skilled expression of the authors’ sentiments.”

Other Titles by Andrew McCarthy:

About the Author

Andrew McCarthy
is a writer, actor, and director. He is an editor-at-large at National Geographic Traveler and has
written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, Bon Appétit, Afar, and others. His book The Longest Journey Home was named a best book of 2012 by the Financial Times (London). He has won six Lowell Thomas Awards, and the Society of American Travel Writers named
him Travel Journalist of the Year in 2010. He made his acting debut at nineteen and has appeared in dozens
of films, including Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire, and The Joy Luck Club. He lives in New York.

About the Narrators

Traber Burns worked for thirty-five years in regional theater, including the New York, Oregon, and Alabama Shakespeare festivals. He also spent five years in Los Angeles appearing in many television productions and commercials, including Lost, Close to Home, Without a Trace, Boston Legal, Grey’s Anatomy, Cold Case, Gilmore Girls, and others.

Patrick Lawlor, an award-winning narrator, is also an accomplished stage actor, director, and combat choreographer. He has worked extensively off Broadway and has been an actor and stuntman in both film and television. He has been an Audie Award finalist multiple times and has garnered several AudioFile Earphones Awards, a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and many starred audio reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews.

Adam Verner is a full-time narrator with over 250 titles recorded for ncompanies such as HarperCollins, Recorded Books, Brilliance, Blackstone Audio, AudioGo, Tantor, Oasis, Audible, Highbridge, eChristian, Dreamscape, and Zondervan. He is the recipient of three AudioFile Earphones Awards and has been nominated for Voice Arts awards by the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences. He holds an MFA in acting from the Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

Shaun Grindell, actor and Earphones Award–winning narrator, was born and raised in Southampton, England. His training includes the Calland School of Speech and Drama and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in London. He has been seen on stage in London and Las Vegas.

Feodor Chin, an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, is an actor classically trained at the American Conservatory Theater and UCLA. His acting career includes numerous credits in film, television, theater, and voice-over.

Bernadette Dunne is the winner of seventeen AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway. She lives in Brooklyn.

Carrington MacDuffie is a voice actor and
recording artist who has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, received numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has been
a frequent finalist for the Audie Award, including for her original audiobook, Many
Things Invisible. Alongside her narration work, she has released a new album of original songs, Only an Angel.

Amy Rubinate has narrated over 250 audiobooks and won multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her books have been selected for AudioFile’s Best Romance of 2016 list; Booklist’s Top 10 Romance, Top 10 Historical Fiction, Editor’s Choice Media; and YALSA’s Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults. She has a degree in oral interpretation of literature and won state and national awards for poetry reading. A voice actor and singer for over a decade, Amy has narrated many interactive children’s books and provided character voices for toys and video games. Amy’s work has been featured in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, AudioFile magazine, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal.

Armando Durán has appeared in films, television, and regional theaters throughout the West Coast. For the last decade he has been a member of the resident acting company at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In 2009 he was named by AudioFile as Best Voice in Biography and
History for his narration of Che Guevara. A native Californian, he divides his time between Los Angeles and Ashland, Oregon.

John McLain is an actor, professional voice talent, and Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. On stage, he has appeared in The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Amahl & the Night Visitors, and The Music Man.

Tom Bromhead is a uniquely international voice artist. He now lives in Los Angeles, but having grown up in Australia and England, as well as being a musician, has given him an ear for accents and characters. He has appeared in commercials with Jane Lynch and Mena Suvari and performed voices for animation and video games, including Skylanders, Transformers, and Call of Duty. Tom performed as a stand-up comedian, traveling as far afield as Kuala Lumpur, Darwin, and London. He studied at Richmond Drama School in London and Second City in Los Angeles.

Mark Peckham is an actor and director based in Rhode Island. In addition to working with Trinity Rep, Virginia Stage Co., and many Boston-area theaters, he was the voice of Joseph Smith in the award-winning PBS documentary American Prophet with Gregory Peck.

Simon Vance (a.k.a. Robert Whitfield) is an award-winning actor and an AudioFile Golden Voice with fifty-eight Earphones Awards. He has won thirteen prestigious Audie Awards and was Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008. He has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over almost thirty years, beginning when he was a radio newsreader for the BBC in London.

Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for the Audie Award. He has acted in a number of productions, both Off-Broadway in New York and Off-Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.

Stephen R. Thorne, eleven-time winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award for narration, is a professional actor and member of the resident acting company at Providence’s esteemed Trinity Repertory Company, where he has played Hamlet, Henry V, and Tom Joad.

R. C. Bray is an award-winning audiobook narrator with over 180 titles to his credit. Besides winning five AudioFile Earphones Awards, he won the prestigious Audie Award in 2015 for Best Science Fiction Narration and has been an Audie Award finalist seven times. He has been a finalist for the Voice Arts Award, and in 2014, his narration earned a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award.

Michael Kramer is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner, an Audie Award nominee, and recipient of a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award. He is also an actor and director in the Washington, DC, area, where he is active in the area’s theater scene and has appeared in productions at the Shakespeare Theatre, the Kennedy Center, and Theater J.

Angela Brazil is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator and a professional actor who is proud to be a long-standing member of the Resident Acting Company at Trinity Repertory Company. She also teaches at the Brown/Trinity Conservatory.

Caroline Shaffer is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. A former company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for nineteen years, she received an MFA from the American Conservatory Theater.

Mia Chiaromonte is a Southern California native with a BA in theater from the University of California, San Diego. She has worked extensively as an actor, singer, and audiobook narrator, and her voice has been heard across the country on various radio commercials for clients including BMW and Time Warner Cable.

Kate Reading is an Audie Award–winning narrator and has received more than thirty Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine. She is also a theater actor in the Washington, DC, area and has been a member of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company since 1987. Her work onstage has been recognized by the Helen Hayes Awards Society, among others.

Paul Michael Garcia,an AudioFile Earphones Award winner and former company member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, received his classical training in theater from Southern Oregon University, where he worked as an actor, director, and designer.

Christine Williams is a singer and actor based in Ashland, Oregon. Her performance credits include productions at regional theaters and on concert stages across the country and around the world, from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Barbican Centre in London to the Aspen Music Festival and the Grotowski Institute in Poland.

Melanie Ewbank has performed in numerous film and regional theater productions. She also appeared on the Lifetime television series Strong Medicine.

Bob Souer is a full-time professional storyteller, voice actor, and audiobook narrator. He has narrated broadcast and nonbroadcast projects for corporations and ministries across North America. His voice has been heard on PBS, the History Channel, the Military Channel, and many other networks. He has also narrated radio and television programs for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, D. James Kennedy Ministries, SIM, and Compassion International. His audiobook narrations have won him two AudioFile Earphones Awards.

Rebecca Mitchell is a performance artist and classically trained vocalist, as well as a professional host, emcee, and personality. Her natural flair for the dramatic, coupled with her love of being in the studio, brought her to the world of narrating in 2013.

Pam Ward, an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, found her true calling reading books for the blind and physically handicapped for the Library of Congress’ Talking Books program. The fact that she can work with Blackstone Audio from the beauty of the mountains of Southern Oregon is an unexpected bonus.

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